Cheap booster antennas?

Let me guess. That computer is under the desk, with a tangle of cables, shoved up against the wall, in the WG311 antenna is in the middle? Do you think any antenna would work in such a location?

Try sticking the WG311 antenna straight out from the back of the computah. That sends more RF in the up/down direction.

Lath and plaster? The wire grid in the wall plus the wet plaster is a great RF shield.

Yes. Any of the 8dBi panel/patch antennas will work just fine. Actually, some of the omni antennas with coax cables will also work, but the panel/patch type will work better. The major improvement will be from moving the antenna out from behind the computer and into the open.

This one looks like the best and cheapest $18 deal:

haven't tried it, but I'm guessing it's a full wave loop and reflector inside. 7dBi gain should be sufficient. It's not as fancy looking as the desktop patch/panel antennas, but good enough.

um... yes?

(ok, i see your point. but i was hoping...)

pretty sure no wire grids. just sheetrock.

i'll give it a shot, thanks.

last night in a fit of boredom i tried switching channels on the access point. that actually made it work much better straight off. connection went up to 36Mb/s and stayed there. no disconnects.

-rs-

Well, I was trying to be subtle, but that never works well. The location of the antenna is critical for getting decent range and performance. Ideally, you want to have at least a wavelength (about

12.5cm) radius clearance around the antenna to insure that nothing gets in the way. Well, that will never happen with the typical PCI card wireless contraption. The wires are always tangled with the antenna. In addition, the metal case makes a great reflector and shield sending the signal off to who knows where. The location near the floor is about the worst location possible as wireless wants to live high up to clear all the furniture and people. Shoving the antenna up against the wall probably detunes it somewhat and adds another RF absorbing obstruction.

Any insulation in the walls? Perhaps aluminium foil backed insulation? That makes a great RF shield. Nothing goes through that stuff.

Well, that sounds like interference which may have been the problem all along. Hard to tell from here.

"Ralph Snart" <

| >Lath and plaster? The wire grid in the wall plus the wet plaster is a | >great RF shield. | | pretty sure no wire grids. just sheetrock.

Quick comment on this. I've run into some installations where the sheet rock had metal film on one side. In one case the metal layer was under the paper covering.

The "Hawking HAI6SDA Directional 6dBi 2.4GHz Antenna"

The system where I installed the Hawking antenna has a Netgear WG311, which has a tiny antenna. The Hawking improved the signal, according to the simple WinXP graphic, from one bar to three or four. BitTorrent downloads now completely swamp the DSL, where it used to still work slowly for other users before ;-)

The PC is downstairs and 20 feet away from the Linksys BEFW11S4 router, which is dressed with a pair of corner reflectors. There are two PCs down there, on opposite walls. The one closest to the WAP also has its back to the WAP, and seems to get decent signal. The one that didn't work well is facing toward the WAP, so the standard antenna is fully blocked.

The EZ-10 corner reflectors made the original WG311 antenna at least usable. I'm going to replace them with the EZ-12 windsurfer because the corner reflectors are too heavy, and I have some trouble keeping the antennas oriented.

Yep. It's becoming more common. Adds a vapor barrier and some additional insulation value: